Never Been the Answer
by nb41
Summary: Small vignette, post-movie  and then some . T because I'm paranoid.


He'd figured Cobb would find out right away, but he hadn't expected to get a call in under twenty-four hours. That of course meant Saito had contacted him, which made Arthur surly but not resentful.

Since he spent much of the first day resting and letting his mind finally wind down from the previous (dreaming) week of adrenaline, it was by pure chance the phonecall came during one of his waking moments. Only a few phone numbers could induce him to pick up just then, and Cobb's was one of them, though truth be told he was also happy for a solid reason to stay awake a little longer. Each phase of sleep came with nightmares, and even if he couldn't remember them he knew them for what they were by his aching throat and cold sweat when he woke up.

"Hello."

Cobb sounded irritated and worried. "Arthur. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he lied. (He would _be_ fine, so it was only half a lie.)

"Right." A pause made it clear Cobb was unconvinced. "You need me to come by?"

The sparse, Taipei apartment surrounding him made that unlikely, even if Arthur had wanted him to. "I'm in Taiwan."

Cobb sighed. "Then you come to me."

"I will."

"When." The demand in Cobb's voice indicated he would keep at Arthur until he knew he'd show up at the house.

"I need a few days." Arthur ran a hand through his hair. He needed a few weeks, really, but a few days was all he'd be able to put Cobb off.

"I'm serious. We need to talk. Especially if this was what I think it was."

"It wasn't the Korean job."

"That's not what I meant."

Saito had told him something about it, then. Arthur tried to stay unresentful; the businessman had only been watching out for him (and anyways he'd probably saved his life). But if he revealed much more to Cobb right now, he'd find himself mugged and stuffed onto a plane by Saito's employees in under a day. Saito had probably considered this, and so in calling Cobb had withheld details, leaving them to Arthur.

For what good that was doing him. "I'll come by the house in a week."

"If you're not here next Friday, I'm having Saito send you."

Arthur sank back against his pillows. Already he was feeling exhausted, so he gave in without a fight. "Okay. Look...I need some sleep."

"Okay." His friend's voice became older-brother-stern. "Next Friday."

"Next Friday."

He clicked his phone off and set it down, which drew his eyes to the black lacquered bowl of dice next to the bedstand's lamp. It held a handful in three different colors, all similar in their casino style: ruby red, emerald green, cobalt blue. Only one in particular held his attention, and he picked it out from the rest without effort, rolling the red die around between his fingers and letting the weight reassure him.

He was home. He was safe. They'd never even learned his real name. He just wished he'd not had to spend so long being hunted in a madman's dreams, evading psychotic projections and waiting for someone (who turned out to be Saito) to figure out what had gone wrong and fix it, to earn back these fairly simple things.

This was what Cobb wanted to talk to him about. It wouldn't be a debriefing, per se, since he and Cobb were closer than that. Cobb just wanted a chance to make sure Arthur hadn't been seriously injured (physically or otherwise) like one could be when a shared dream went on too long with the worst kind of individual, and he had to admit he wanted to tell him what had happened. (He'd told Saito as little as possible.)

He counted himself lucky. It had been several dreaming days of desparation and existing by the skin of his teeth, rather than some of the truly horrific things he'd heard could happen, but he felt like a dishtowel that had been wrung too tight none-the-less. It would be good for him to see Cobb's family: to sit in that comfortable house and listen to the children play (which was usually a prelude to being attacked by them); to eat Cobb's mother-in-law's cooking and be somewhere that barely existed to the rest of the world; to have academic conversations with Professor Miles about nothing in particular out on the porch while crickets chattered in the grass. He also knew they were more than happy to be there for him, and to deny them the ability to do so was almost, if not quite, as unfair as denying it to the aunt and uncle who were his only immediate family. (And he supposed if he was visiting Cobb's family, he should also go visit them too.)

Saito had asked him, on the mostly silent jet-ride back, why he still did work when he had plenty of money to live on from the Fischer job. He'd only been able to think of one answer, since his recent experience had him wondering the same thing: "Can't stop swimming." Saito had pointed out it was believed sharks sometimes slept (or something akin to it), drifting or resting motionless along the bottom of the ocean or in caves. If a creature once thought to die for lack of motion had turned out to be otherwise, Saito reasoned, surely he could find a way to rest and still do the things which kept him alive as well.

Arthur hadn't been sure what to say to that, so hadn't said anything, but as he began to fall asleep he thought about it again. He didn't _have_ to do these things; risk run-ins with Cobol or jobs that could cost him his sanity or life or run from city to city the world over like an ocean current whose only existence was in motion. He could just go be somewhere. Why didn't he?

Maybe he could talk to Cobb about that. He drifted off, his totem still in his hand, thinking, _Next Friday_.


End file.
